Brief for Appellees

The appellants here, who are plaintiffs below, are Negro citizens of the United States and the State of Kansas, who reside in Topeka, Shawnee County, Kansas. The infant plaintiffs are children of common school age. The defendants below and appellees herein are the duly constituted governing body and certain administrative officers of the public school system of Topeka, Kansas. The State of Kansas has intervened in the District Court to defend the constitutionality of the state statute under attack.

Acting pursuant to the authority conferred by G. S. 1949, 72-1724, supra, the appellee, Board of Education, many years ago created within the city of Topeka, which is one school district, eighteen school areas, and now maintains in each of said areas a kindergarten and elementary school for white children only. (R. 24.) At the same time the present Board of Education of Topeka and prior boards of education, acting under same statutory authority, have established and operated in said city four elementary schools in the same grades for Negro children. Negro children may attend any one of said elementary schools that they or their parents may select. It was stipulated in the Court below that the Negro schools are located in neighborhoods in which the population is predominantly Negro. (R. 31.) The stipulation also indicates that at the time the action was brought, the enrollment in the eighteen white schools was 6,019, as compared to 658 students enrolled in the four Negro schools. (R. 37.)

The administration of the entire Topeka school system is under the Board of Education, and the same administrative regulations govern both the white and Negro schools. The Court found specifically that there is no material difference in the physical facilities in colored and white schools; that the educational qualifications of the teachers and the quality of instruction in the colored schools are not inferior to, but are comparable with those in the white schools; and that the courses of study followed in the two groups of schools are identical, being that prescribed by state law. (R. 245.) Also, it was found that colored students are furnished transportation to the segregated schools without cost to the children or their parents. No such transportation is furnished to the white children in the segregated schools. (R. 246.)